[[!meta date="2011-07-26"]][[!meta author="Tyler Cipriani"]][[!meta license="""
[[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/]]
"""]][[!meta copyright="""
Copyright &copy; 2017 Tyler Cipriani
"""]][[!meta title="Alt-Numpad for Linux"]]

In Ubuntu the alt+numpad ACSII codes don’t work—this _was_ a major stumbling block for me since I am annoyingly [picky about typography](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/08/15/mind-your-en-and-em-dashes-typographic-etiquette/ "Smashing Magazine—mind your em and en dashes"). 

After spending way too much time Googling I found that these steps work:

* Hold `Ctrl+Shift+U`
* Release the “U” key (while still holding Ctrl+Shift)
* Type the Unicode code for the special character you’d like to use
* Find unicode characters by [searching on Wolfram Alpha](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=em+dash "em dash - Wolfram|Alpha")

Another great unicode character reference for math and science can be found at [Penn State's website](http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/mathchart.html "Math Unicode Entities").
Of course, if you don't want to remember these unicode characters, CopyPasteCharacter.com is a good [ACSII character resource](http://copypastecharacter.com/ "✿ Our favorite set — CopyPasteCharacter.com").
[[!tag computing keyboard unicode]]
